Nick Raposo, Founder/Director

Nick is the founder and director of the Center for American Marine Art. He is also an award winning marine artist and served recently as President of the American Society of Marine Artists and Director of Special Projects for the National Maritime Historical Society. After graduating from Harvard College, Nick worked in the business world at International Creative Management and the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. When his wife was getting her Ph.D at Yale, he ran the acquisitions department at Yale University Press, as well as the Yale Series of Younger Poets and Yale Judaica. He also served as an editor of the Journal of Law and Humanities at Yale Law School. He is a three-time Emmy Award nominee for his television writing with WGBH in Boston. Nick has worked as an educational consultant with many non-profit cultural institutions around the country, including PBS, The New England Conservatory, The Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Minnesota Orchestra and the Music-in-Education National Consortium. He has provided pro-bono outreach content for the Mystic Seaport Museum and the National Maritime Historical Society.

Burchenal Green, Board of Directors

Burchenal Green is a consultant to, and former President and Executive Director of the National Maritime Historical Society, a not-for-profit organization of some 6,000 members dedicated to preserving America’s historic ships and promoting how our maritime heritage has shaped the culture of this country and influences its future. The Society produces the quarterly magazine Sea History, the pre-eminent journal of maritime heritage, as well as books, an interactive website with important resource materials, and an active education and awards program. The awards serve to recognize excellence and encourage others to work in the maritime field. In 1998, Burchenal was the director, under the leadership of Howard Slotnick, of a project that brought the only parade of tall ships up the Hudson River in the twentieth century and she served as the Assistant Parade Marshall. She served on the National Advisory Board for the Commemoration of the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 and the Star Spangled Banner, and she serves on the Steering Committee for the Maritime Heritage Conferences. She was awarded the 2018 National Maritime Conference Award of Distinction for her work in bringing together the organizations promoting our maritime heritage, and to honor NMHS and Sea History. She serves on the Advisory Board for the American Caribbean Maritime Foundation.

J. Russell Jinishian, Board of Directors

Russell Jinishian is regarded as the Nation’s Leading Authority on Contemporary Marine Art. He was the Director of Mystic Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut for over 12 years, and in 1995, became the Director of the Big Horn Galleries in Fairfield, Connecticut, which also operated galleries in Aspen, Colorado, Cody, Wyoming and Carmel, California. He studied Art and Art History at the Sir John Cass School of Art in London and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Cornell University. He served as a Program Director for the Silvermine Guild of Artists, the Nation’s Oldest Guild of Artists in New Canaan, Connecticut. He was the Art columnist for the Connecticut Post newspaper for 6 years and his reviews appeared in Art New England. For several years, beginning in 1997, he was a contributing editor to Nautical World Magazine, penning the popular “Bridge Wing” column. He served as juror for many exhibitions including three years for the prestigious National Art for the Parks Exhibition. He sits on the Advisory Board of the National Maritime Historical Society. He is a member of the New York Yacht Club, and an honorary member of the American Society of Marine Artists. He published Marine Art News, the nation’s only publication dedicated to Contemporary Marine Art and Artists, for more than 15 years, and is the author of Bound for Blue Water, considered the Definitive Guide to Contemporary Marine Art. He has operated the J. Russell Jinishian Gallery, the Nation's Leading Marine Art Gallery, since 1997. He continues to lecture nationally on marine art and collecting, and in 2017, Russell was awarded the American Society of Marine Artist's Lifetime Achievement Award.

R. Tripp Evans, Board of Directors

Tripp is Professor of the History of Art at Wheaton College, specializes in American art and architecture, with a focus on the material culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  He received his B.A. in Architectural History from the University of Virginia and his M.A. and Ph.D. in the History of Art from Yale University. He is the author of two books, and in 2010 won the National Award for Arts Writing.  His current research focuses on the role of the American house museum, as seen through four historic homes located in New England.  He is President of the Board of Directors for the Providence Athenaeum in Providence, Rhode Island, and in 2017 he was appointed to the Rhode Island State Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission.

Hugh Howard, Board of Directors

Hugh is the author of more than twenty scholarly and trade books about architecture and landscape, presidents and painting. His books include The Painter’s Chair, Architecture’s Odd Couple, House-Dreams, Thomas Jefferson, Architect, and Houses of the Founding Fathers. In seeking to tell stories of the American past, he follows the fault lines where the lives of essential characters intersect. Thus, in his newest book, Architects of an American Landscape (Atlantic, January 2022), he traces the careers of Henry Hobson Richardson, who, though dead at just forty-seven, is still regarded by many as the nation’s most influential architect, and of Frederick Law Olmsted, the man responsible for introducing parks to the American city. A narrative of friendship and collaboration, the book follows the two visionaries as they reimagine the American landscape during the radical changes of the post-Civil War era. The parents of two grown daughters, Hugh and his wife Betsy divide their time between homes in the Hudson Valley and New Hampshire’s Upper Valley. He has previously served as a board member of the Mark Twain House and Museum, the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society, the Historic Eastfield Foundation, and the Cheekwood Estate and Gardens.